Let's hear from the spleen.

There's a woman I have known for a number of years, and the odd thing about her is that while she has changed many things about herself, she has herself remained unchanged. I'm not sure that's a good thing. 

In a way it shows consistency, but it may be of the hobgoblin-of-little-minds variety. I am not without any respect for her, so I'll say it's somewhere in between consistency and a failure to learn.

Everything about her seems to have changed in many ways, including attitudes, religions, politics, dietary preferences, work ambitions, and on and on, but they're all keyed into the fact that she is ruled by the heart. Intellectually it looks like she's all over the map -- and not a well-drawn map either -- but emotionally I think she's straight as an arrow, following a rule of kindness and love. It seems to me that without the intellectual virtues of prudence and justice, this kind of compass can lead to horrible whimsical decisions, and also hatred for those who get in its path, ending in destruction and misery. 

Then again, my wife thinks I am a logical person, and I've heaped my buffet plate with my share of destruction and misery too. So who knows what's best?

And yet whenever someone uses that aggressively stupid expression "The heart wants what it wants," I chime in with "Could you at least please give the head a vote?"

They might be better off if they polled all the organs, in fact, rather than just cave in to whatever that ignorant thumping dumdum in the chest says all the time. I'm sure the other organs might have interesting counsel. Like:

STOMACH -- "I don't care. When do we eat? Not now? In a little while? How about now? Not yet?"

GENITALIA -- "Who? That person? That GORGEOUS SEXY THANG? YES! LET'S GO! LET'S -- What? We're just here to compare home equity loans? DANG wake us when its over."

LUNGS -- "This nonsense leaves me breathless, although everything does in time. On that note, don't listen to the genitals. They just want to get into everyone's pancreas."

Pancreas: "Hardy har har, lungs."

LIVER -- "I'm just sick of this behavior. I always have to clean up your stupid mistakes, whether it's the Beer Pong World Championships or the Nuclear Wings Cookout or the gas-station nigiri. How about we just say no to everything for a couple of weeks and let me catch up?"

KIDNEYS -- "We are down with Liver on this, as we are with many things, and for the same reason -- we always have to deal with the fallout. Sorry to rain on your parade. Don't even ask Bladder; he never says anything unless he's all full of himself.”

LARGE INTESTINE -- "I think I speak for my partner Smalls when I say we are just flushed with relief. It bowels us over. Let's move on with this decision right away."

SPLEEN -- "What do I think? I think I'm furious, that's what! And if I don't start doing some venting, there's gonna be trouble around here!"

ISLETS OF LANGERHANS -- "Well, gee, thanks for asking! After all, I'm not really an organ, just a group of pancreatic cells, but since you -- Hey! Where're you going?"